Remote Viewing (RV) is a mental faculty that allows a perceiver (a “viewer”) to describe or give details about a target that is inaccessible to normal senses due to distance, time, or shielding. It was originally developed during the Cold War, when the CIA asked physicists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff to study potential military applications of psychic phenomena. Psychics and ordinary people were asked to “view,” draw, and then give information about remote geographical targets such as roads, buildings, and laboratory facilities. The only information the viewers received about the target was a series of coordinates, which served them as a reference.
The accuracy of the descriptions was astonishing, and far beyond what might have been accounted for by coincidence. Targ and Puthoff’s results suggested that Remote Viewing is a latent and widely found perceptual ability which can be taught and practiced by anyone. The explanation for how RV works rests on an accumulation of knowledge in such disparate fields as quantum physics, neurology, and psychology, and supports the theory that everything in the universe is interconnected.
The show is comprised of four video installations from the past two years which continue Russo’s investigation into the unknown and unrepresentable. The works in the show explore how this practice may influence art and vice versa: Is it possible to Remote View works of art, and what are the implications of such an experiment on the way in which we think about art?
The project examines whether works of art possess a spiritual core or energy which may be captured and communicated. It explores the dimensions in which works of art exist while investigating what is left of the artist’s creative intention in the process of interpretation by the viewer’s mind.
curator: maayan sheleff